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“Aaaa” is What the Crying Baby Says

A Beginning Reading Lesson

Abbey Engles

Rationale: This lesson teaches children about the short vowel correspondence a = /a/.  In order to be able to read, children must learn to recognize the spelling that map out word pronunciations. In this lesson children will learn to recognize, spell, and read words containing the spelling a. They will learn a meaningful representation that the crying baby says “Aaaa,” they will spell and read words containing this spelling in the letterbox lesson and read a decodable book that focuses on the correspondence a = /a/.


Materials:

  • Graphic Image of crying baby

  • Cover-up critter

  • Whiteboard or Smartboard

  • Elkonin boxes for modeling

  • Individual Elkonin letterboxes for each student

  • Letter manipulatives for each child and magnetic or Smartboard letters for teacher:

    • a, b, c, d, f, g, h, l, m, n, p, s, t

  • List of spelling words on poster or whiteboard to read:

    • hat, nap, mat, dad, scab, flag, snap, pant, smash

  •  Decodable text:

    • Nan and Pap

  •  Assessment questions


Procedures:

  1. Say: “In order to become expert readers, we need to learn the code that tells us how to pronounce words. Today we are going to learn the short a sound. When I say /a/, I want you to think of a baby crying (show graphic). [Motion with both hand as if you are rubbing your eyes].  Now let’s look at which letter makes the /a/ sound.” Have the student find the letter a.

2. Say: “Before we learn about the spelling of /a/, we are going to listen for the sound in some words. When I say /a/, my jaw drops, and my tongue is down like this. [make vocal gesture for /a/.] I’ll show you first: tan. When I say “tan,” I heard the /a/ sound and felt my jaw drop and my tongue move down to the bottom of my mouth. [Point towards the dropped jaw.] There is a short-a in tan. Now let’s see if it’s in the word “win.” Hmm, I didn’t hear /a/ in “win” and I didn’t feel my jaw drop and my tongue go down. Now you try. When you hear the /a/ sound in a word pretend to cry like a baby motioning with your hands what a crying baby does. Is it in sat, kite, snail, fan, tank? [Have children motion as if they were a crying baby for the words that have a = /a/.]”

3. “What if we want to spell the word the word flag? ‘The two generals raised the flag high.’ Flag is what is being raised in the sentence. To spell flag in letterboxes, first I need to know how many phonemes I have in the word, so I stretch it out and count: /f/ /l/ /a/ /g/. I need 4 letterboxes. I heard /a/ just before the /g/ so I’m going to put an a letter tile in the 3rd box. The word starts with /f/, I need the f  letter tiles in the 1st box. That was easy, but it gets trickier. There are 2 more boxes open: one before the /a/ and one after. Hmmm, /f/ /l/ /a/ /g/, the letter tiles l goes in the 2nd letterbox. There is one box left, /f/ /l/ /a/ /g/. G is the only letter missing so I put the letter tile g in the last box. Now. I will show you how I would read the tough word. [Display poster with snag on the top and model reading the word.] I’m going to start with the a letter tile; that part says /a/. Now I’m ging to put the beginning letters with it: s-n-a, /sna/. Now, I’ll put that chunk together with the last sound, /sna-g/. Oh, snag like “I snagged the ball from the other team.”

4. Say: “Now, I’m going to have you spell some words in letterboxes. You’ll start out eat with 3 phoneme boxes for hat. A hat is something you wear on your head, “I wore an Auburn hat to school today.”  What letter should go in the first box? [Respond to children’s answers]. What goes in the second and third boxes? I’ll check your spelling while I walk around the room. [Observe progress]. You’ll need 3 letter boxes again for the next word. Listen to the beginning sound to spell in the first box. Make sure you listen for /a/ in the word.” Here’s the word: nap. I will take a nap today; nap [Allow children to spell remaining words, giving sentences for each word; mat, dad, scab, flag, snap, pant, smash]

5. Say: “Now, I am going to let you read the words you’ve spelled. [Show the words hat, nap, mat, dad, scab, flag, snap, the extra words pant and smash. Have children read words in unison. Afterwards, call on individuals to read one word on the list until everyone has had a turn.]


6. Say: “You’ve done a great job and reading words with our new spelling for /a/: a. Now, we are going to read a book called Nan and Pap. This is a story about a couple that goes by Nan and Pap. They are tired and wnt to take a nap, but they do not have a bed to nap on. To find out what they will do about their nap, you will have to read find out. Let’s pair up and take turns reading Nan and Pap to find out what happens. [Children pair up and take turns reading alternate pages each while teacher walks about the room monitoring progress. After individual paired reading, the class rereads Nan and Pap chorally, stopping between page turns to discuss the story.]


7. Say: “That was a great story.” [I will call up students one at a time to my desk and have them read 3 pages of Nan and Pap. I will listen for notes of miscues while they are reading. After, I am done assessing readers individually, the students will be working on an assessment worksheet practicing identifying the short vowel a = /a/ correspondence. I will pass out the worksheets and say the questions aloud.] Say: "Do you hear /a/ in _______ or ________?" Using the words: pot/pat, clap/clip, dog/cat, pear/apple, track/trick, and snap/snip” [Collect worksheets to evaluate individual child progress.]


Resources:

ticle/short-a-sounds/

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